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Thomas Russell
Rev. Thomas Russell (1762 - 31 July 1788) was an English poet and cleric. Life Russell was born at Beaminster, Dorset, in January or February 1762 (baptised 2 March), the second son of John Russell (1725–1808), a prosperous Beaminster attorney, by his wife Virtue (1743–1768), daughter of Richard Brickle of Shaftesbury. His father's family had been for generations merchants and shipowners at Weymouth.Seccombe, 472. After attending the grammar school at Bridport, he entered Winchester School as a commoner in 1777, and before the end of the year he was already in 6th book and 15th boy in the school. In 1778 he entered Winchester College, where he studied under Joseph Warton and Thomas Warton, the profesor of poetry. By the following year he was senior in the school; he gained medals for Latin verse and Latin essay (1778–1779). He was elected to New College, Oxford, in 1780, being second on the roll, and earned a B.A. in October 1784. During his residence at the university he devoted himself to French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Provencal and even German literature. In the Gentleman's Magazine (1782, p. 574, and 1783, i. 124), under the signature ‘A.S.,’ he wrote two erudite papers on the poetry of Mosen Jordi and the Provençal language, defending his former master, Thomas Warton, against Ritson's ill-tempered Observations upon the History of Poetry. He was ordained deacon in 1785, and priest in 1786. A career of brilliant promise was cut short by phthisis, of which Russell died at Bristol Hotwells on 31 July 1788. He was buried in the churchyard of Powerstock, Dorset. Writing Until shortly before Russell's death he was engaged in correcting his poems. He left a few fragments in manuscript, now in the possession of Captain Thomas Russell of Beaminster. In 1789 appeared Sonnets and Miscellaneous Poems by the late Thomas Russell, Fellow of New College, Oxford, sm. 4to; these were dedicated to Warton by the editor, William Howley (1766-1848), afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. A fine scholarly taste is exhibited in the versions from Petrarch, Camoens, and Weisse, but the most noteworthy feature of the little volume is the excellence of Russell's sonnets. Together with William Lisle Bowles, a fellow-Wykehamist of kindred sympathies, he may claim an important place in the revival of the sonnet in England. Wordsworth not only wrote with warm appreciation of Russell's genius as a sonneteer, but in his sonnet, Iona (upon landing), he adopted from Russell, as conveying his feeling better than any words of his own could do, the four concluding lines: And ‘hopes, perhaps, more heavenly bright than thine, A grace by thee unsought and unpossest, A faith more fixed, a rapture more divine Shall gild their passage to eternal rest.’ Another sonnet of Russell's seems to have suggested an exquisite passage in Byron's "O snatch'd away in beauty's bloom;" of a third, "supposed to be written at Lemnos," Landor wrote that it alone authorised Russell to join the shades of Sophocles and Euripides. Coleridge, Cary, and Bowles applaud this "Miltonic" sonnet, which finds a place in the anthologies of Dyce, Capel Lofft, Tomlinson, Main, Hall Caine, and William Sharp.Seccombe, 473. Southey in his Vision of Judgment associated Russell with Chatterton and Bampfylde among the young spirits whom the muses "marked for themselves at birth and with dews from Castalia sprinkled." Russell lacked the originality of genius, but, says Cary, "his ear was tuned to the harmonies of Spenser, Milton, and Dryden, and fragments of their sounds he gives us back as from an echo, but so combined as to make a sweet music of his own." Recognition A mural tablet was erected to his memory in the tower of Powerstock church. The Oxford edition of Russell's sonnets is scarce, but his remains are printed in Thomas Park's Collection of British Poets, 1808, vol. xli., in Sanford's British Poets, 1819, xxxvii., and in the Chiswick edition of the British Poets, 1822, lxxiii. The [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]] declared his "Sonnet supposedly written at Lemnos" to be "unquestionably the greatest English sonnet of the 18th century."Thomas Russell (1762-1788), Encyclopædia Britannica 1911, Vol. XXIII, 825. JRank.org, Web, Oct. 21, 2016. Publications *''Sonnets, and miscellaneous poems''. Oxford, UK: D. Prince & J. Cooke / J.F. & C. Rivington, London / T. Cadell, London / et al, 1789. *''Poetical Works''. London: J. Sharpe, 1808. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Thomas Russell 1788, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 21, 2016. Poems by Thomas Russell #Sonnet Supposedly written at Lemnos See also *List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Oct. 21, 2016. Notes External links ;Poems *"Cervantes" *"Ode imitated from the preceding" *"Epistle to Thomas Warton" *Sonnets *Thomas Russell at Poetry Nook (34 poems) ;About *Thomas Russell (1762-1788) in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica *Thomas Russell (1762-1788) at English Poetry, 1579-1830 * Russell, Thomas (1762-1788) Category:1762 births Category:1788 deaths Category:18th-century poets Category:English clergy Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford Category:English-language poets Category:English poets Category:Poets Category:People from Dorset Category:Sonneteers Category:18th-century authors Category:English authors Category:Authors